What I liked about S1 was that it was a bit tighter than The Walking Dead. Pedro Pascal, of course, is always great to watch. I liked the little vignettes as the road trip across America played out.
S2 lost all of that momentum. Interpersonal moments became overly contrived. The show settles into a predictable pacing of running, action, stop and talk, running… Actors get even less to work with and good character moments are sparse and mostly used for cliffhanger bait.
I just want grumpy Pascal escorting a vulnerable but sassy child/alien across a map and making/killing friends along the way. I do not want a late 00s zombie c-movie with theater actors doing metaphors about Israel/Palestine. Especially when the punchline is “Wow, Israelis sure are brutal but have you seen what they’re fighting?”
What did YOU think about S2 and its ending?
The show (and likely the game, IDK I haven’t played it) seemed to go all-in on zionism in season 2. I made it through episode 2 before I was like “The fuck?” and hearing the writer/director commentary left a bad taste in my mouth. They are doing “both sides are equally bad but one of them is worse, actually” with some “Why can’t we all get along?”
These statements by them outside of the show with the show including those themes only benefits the oppressor. Isreal started the situation in Palestine decades ago with help from Europeans. There is only one solution: an end to Isreal and for Palestinians to take back what was stolen. Asking the Palestinians to forgive the Israelis for the ongoing genocide is absurd. Yet that’s what TLoU wants you to do. It paints armed resistance against your oppressors as “extremist.”
Honestly hope it gets canceled, but it sounds like it’s going to get a million seasons. I do feel bad for the actors who likely signed up for something they thought sounded neat without knowing about the writer’s and director’s politics.
The Seraphites got an sympathy upgrade, believe me its much much worse in the game. It literally employs the “Aisha” rhetoric as an vital part of an character’s backstory and honor k*lling.
They also both-side it completely when they reveal that the war started because both sides wanted to control a piece of land that NEITHER was “indigenous” to.